Teachers vow third strike if no pact by Aug. 25

July 21, 2003|By LEONA KOZUCH, Daily American Staff Writer

More than three years have passed since the teachers in the Somerset School District have had a contract, now union leaders say there will be a guaranteed strike come Aug. 25 if a tentative settlement can't be reached.

"We came out of the meeting with a mandate stating that if no contract is settled or if no tentative agreement is reached, we will not return to class on the 25th," said Somerset Area Education Association president Jon Critchfield.

Aug. 25 is the anticipated first day of class.

"We are willing to negotiate as often as the board is willing between now and then."

The school board and the teachers union have been negotiating a new teachers contract since January 2000. The teachers have been working under provisions of a contract that expired in June 2000.

The union's membership met Monday evening at the Christ Community in Faith Church along Route 31.

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Although the members were not required to vote on arbitrator David Petersen's ruling that was released last week, Critchfield said the group was overwhelmingly in favor of approving the proposal.

Just Friday, the school board members met to decide to accept or reject the ruling. Unanimously, of the eight board members present, the board members rejected the proposal.

"It's not difficult for you to vote in favor of something when it is all going in your favor," said board president John Coleman Monday. "Its not a surprise to any of us that they accepted what the arbitrator awarded."

As far as the threat to strike for the third time come Aug. 25, Coleman said the decision is one that has to be made by the teachers.

"Whether to strike or not is up to the union," he said. "The arbitrator's decision is not representative of a compromise."

Critchfield added that comments Coleman made in a previous Daily American article were false regarding the narrowing or elimination of a salary gap.

"According to John Coleman, the scale will not narrow the salary gap, but the arbitrator says in plain language that the union's position would substantially narrow or eliminate the gap by the sixth year of the contract," he said. "That decision came from figures that the district even presented."

Coleman disagrees in saying that a salary increase from $29,000 in 2003-04 to $37,994 in the 2004-05 school year, is a definite gap that continues.

"I take great umbrage in that statement," he said. "There absolutely is a gap and you can clearly see it between steps one and two. It is not closing the gap and it clearly will remain."

Coleman added that although a salary freeze has been set for incoming teachers for the last three years because of the inability to settle, once a contract is settled, the teachers will still be one of the highest paid districts in the area.

"Even with that, we will remain the highest in the region and tied with first place with Ligonier," he said. "It is easy to see that an $8,000 raise does not close any salary gaps."

Another issue centered on if there is money set aside to pay for anticipated retroactivity costs.

Critchfield argues that Colemen falsely stated that the district has no reserve set aside for the expected expenditure.

"The second issue was with money from the retroactivity. The district had to have set aside money for the retroactive salary increases," he said. "They would be stupid and financially irresponsible to not do so."

Critchfield argued that the district, if they didn't put the money aside, they should have been accumulating it over the course of the past three years, which would require no millage increase.

Coleman said the district had placed the money in the general fund balance and if a pay-out happens, the money would come from there.

"There is no reserve to fund retroactivity," he said. "That will come directly out of the fund balance, which will definitely deplete much of our account."

Despite the conflicting sides, both said Monday that they would sit down at the negotiating table again soon.

"We will be initiating another negotiating session with them sometime (this morning)," Critchfield said.

He added that not only will the union ask to meet again, but also ask for the board to supply another proposal when the two sides meet.

"Since the board rejected the report Friday, they need to put together a position," he said. "We are telling them, 'If you didn't like that one, bring us a new one.'"

Should both sides not agree to a tentative pact, Critchfield said the strike would last between 20 and 25 days.